The Pensacola skateboarding community is upset over suggestions by City Council members that skateboarding should be banned throughout the city.

Councilwoman Sherri Myers suggested Pensacola implement a city-wide ban on skateboarding on sidewalks during a discussion April 9 over banning skateboarding at Veterans Memorial Park.

As an add-on item during the council's agenda conference, Councilman Brian Spencer made a proposal to ban skateboarding at Veterans Memorial Park because there had been more than $1,000 of damage in the park from skateboarding.

Spencer's measure to add the item to the agenda failed 4-1 because other council members wanted a broader ban that would cover the entire city.

"It has been a big priority of ours to educate the community and our public officials about the values that skateboarding instills in our youth," Shell wrote. "Skateboarders do not have the best stereotype and are often viewed as outcasts, criminals, or just bad kids. This may be due to the fact that there are few places to skate in Pensacola, and our sport is illegal in most of them."

During the meeting, Myers said she wanted to expand the ban to the entire city.

"I don't see why it should be limited to just certain areas of the city," Myers said during the meeting. "Why the whole entire city should not have a higher standard of quality of life."

Councilwoman Jewel Cannada-Wynn agreed with Myers, and Councilman P.C. Wu said he would like to see an updated proposal that would specify when and how it could be legal to skateboard in the city.

Shell told the News Journal he was surprised by the comments.

"I don't think that's the answer," he said. "There's such a huge demographic of skateboarders here in Pensacola, and I think with 93 parks and no public skate park — especially having so many public parks where you're not even allowed to skate — I think that we need to be able to work together to offer up a solution for skateboarders, bikers and Rollerbladers."

Renderings from Upward Intuition show what the planned skate park designed by Spohn Ranch Skateparks in downtown Pensacola could look like.(Photo: Upward Intuition)

Sean Fell, owner of Waterboyz Surf and Skate Shop, which has its own indoor skate park, said he didn't think it was right for the city to ban skateboarding in public without providing the public with a legal place to skate.

"Most cities these days are building skate parks for the youth of their city," Fell said. "We seem to be way behind the curve on it."

Fell said he attempted to get the city to build a skate park more than 18 years ago — collecting more than 500 signatures in support of the idea — but the city was not interested at the time.

Shell has led an effort since 2015 to get a skate park build as part of the Hollice T. Williams Park beneath Interstate 110.

Escambia County announced last week it would receive $1.6 million from the RESTORE Act for the design and permitting of a stormwater and recreation park that would connect to the skate park.

Shell said that was good news the skate park, but his nonprofit Upward Intuition is still raising the needed funds for the construction of the park.

Shell said he hopes the issue coming before the City Council will be a blessing in disguise and encourage the community to get a world-class skate park in Pensacola.

"I feel like the remarks from Sherri Myers and some of the other council members were really the spark to get the community to be really engaged with this project, and passionate about it," Shell said.